


LDR (Long-Distance Revelation)

by aoigensou



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dirty Talk, Kinkalot, M/M, Mistakes, Prepare yourself for secondhand embarrassment, Videoconferencing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26044147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aoigensou/pseuds/aoigensou
Summary: Every week Arthur has a videoconference with four other department heads to check in for work no matter where in the world he is. This week, Arthur is actually home, where his flatmate can barge in and ask embarrassing questions about his crush on his coworker. Who knew the mute button wasn't foolproof?
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 193
Collections: Kinkalot 2020





	LDR (Long-Distance Revelation)

**Author's Note:**

> Extended version of joint second-place winner of Kinkalot 2020 Main Challenge #2: Mistakes!
> 
> Alternate titles considered:  
> TIFU (stands for "today I fucked up", because I got the idea from r/TIFU on reddit when I couldn't think of an idea at first)  
> Zoom Goes the Dynamite (because I am a memelord, but only for old out-of-date memes)

As mistakes went it wasn't catastrophic, but that didn't necessarily make it consequence-free.

*

Arthur loved and hated working for a multinational company. On the one hand he got to satisfy his wanderlust on the company credit card. There were months that went by without him setting foot on English soil, and he loved it even if it meant forgetting what time zone he was in at times. One week he could be in Bangkok sampling the local street food and visiting ancient temples, the next he’d be in Toronto enjoying Canadian hospitality and an abundance of maple-flavoured treats.

On the other, worse, hand were the mandatory team leader check-in meetings he was forced to attend via videoconferencing. No matter where in the world he was, at 10 am GMT every Tuesday he and four other team leaders from different departments were expected to meet and go over progress on individual and joint projects. It was the roughest whenever one of them was in the States, since at worst someone would be up at 2 am in Los Angeles trying not to look as though they had just been woken out of a dead sleep.

Pros and cons.

Luckily, this week Arthur was back home in London and not expected to go into the office until later that afternoon, so for the meeting he could put on a shirt and tie and look presentable from the waist up, then go back to bed to catch a few more hours of sleep before getting to work. Unluckily, he was expected to sit and pay attention to the meeting and not fantasise over his hot coworker, but that was a problem he had to face every week rather than this week specifically. 

On a separate unrelated note that factored in regardless, working from home meant he had to contend with his flatmate being unpredictable. It was near the beginning of the weekly video call that said unpredictability reared its head and was ultimately, at least in Arthur’s mind, responsible for what happened next.

“Hey Pendragon, you home?” Gwaine, his flatmate, called from his bedroom. Arthur quickly hit the keyboard shortcut on the videoconference to mute himself.

“Obviously,” Arthur called after typing a quick, _Sorry guys, the flatmate wants a quick chat, keep going and I’ll be right back_ into the chat box and figured he could pay half-attention for a bit. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking.”

Gwaine poked his head around the wall to the dining room to find Arthur sat at the table in front of his laptop, business up top and boxer-briefs down below like some sort of weird business-casual mullet. He saw Gwaine grin when he noticed his internet-meeting-attire, and tried not to squirm and give the game away to his colleagues that he was anything other than fully professionally dressed. “Nice underwear. Real classy.” His eyes flicked to the screen, filled with the faces of four similarly-dressed men. “Oh, is hot coworker on today?”

“He’s on every week, he’s also a team leader,” Arthur sighed as he half-turned from the laptop to talk at Gwaine on the off-chance one of his colleagues could read lips. “It’s seriously driving me to distraction.”

“That bad, huh?” Gwaine asked.

“Worse. Half the time I’m staring at him and his adorable ears and don’t catch a word he’s saying, and the other half of the time I’m listening to his voice and trying not to pop a boner while imagining what he’d sound like screaming my name as I’m fucking him and don’t catch a word he’s saying. Either way I generally end up looking like a buffoon if he asks me a direct question about what he’s been saying.”

“You should just man up and ask the bloke out,” Gwaine said. Arthur grimaced.

“It’s probably against some sort of company policy that’s outlined in the company handbook that I never bothered to read. Besides, I don’t even know if he’d be into me,” he said.

Gwaine shrugged. “Worst he can say is no, right? Ten quid says he’d _love_ to be _into_ you if you know what I mean.”

Arthur groaned at the innuendo. “Fucking Merlin, I wish he’d be into me in every way you meant that,” he muttered just loud enough to set Gwaine off laughing before he turned back to his meeting and unmuted himself. “Sorry gentlemen, I’m back. What’d I miss?”

***

“Hey Arthur, before you go can I talk to you?” Merlin asked as they were finishing for the day. Everyone else was disconnecting to get on with their lives for another week, but Merlin was sitting there looking straight into the camera while fidgeting. It was ridiculously endearing, but also gave Arthur pause. He gave Merlin a questioning look, noticing that he was biting those full, pink lips of his. He tried to subtly adjust his half-hard dick, wondering how fast he could get away for a quick wank to release some of the pent-up pressure before his planned midmorning nap.

“What’s up?” Arthur asked, flashing Merlin what he hoped was a charming and not-at-all creepy smile.

“So I normally wouldn’t have mentioned anything, but I thought if it happened to me I would want to know,” Merlin started, and Arthur looked down at his white shirtfront and red tie, wondering if he had a huge coffee stain or something.

“Okay?” he asked when everything was clean and pressed as usual.

“Well… did you know when you mute using the keyboard shortcut, it mutes for everyone except the host?” Merlin asked. Arthur blinked in confusion. “And this week it was my turn to host…”

He felt his face heat up as he realised what Merlin was talking about, and the desire to jump out of his window crashed into him with the force of a tsunami. “Oh,” he said, faint. Was this how his career ended, with a careless comment to his flatmate about his office crush? Was he a few hours away from being called in by HR to answer for his crime of inadvertent sexual harassment?

“Nobody else heard!” Merlin was quick to reassure him. It really wasn’t reassuring in the least. “And if it makes you feel any better, I feel the same way about you.”

Wait.

What?

“You do?” Arthur asked, feeling a huge case of mood whiplash. Merlin looked down, seeming shy but the edge of a smirk tugging at his lips ruined the illusion. It was an incredibly sexy combination, and Arthur had the urge to shove Merlin against the hotel bed that was in frame behind him.

“Sometimes I have to excuse myself to the toilets and have one out after talking to you, I get so hard thinking about you pounding your cock into my arse wearing that grey suit of yours,” Merlin said, glancing up into the camera through his long lashes. “You just shove the trousers and your pants down enough to pull your cock out and when you come it gets all over the linen and ruins it. It’s my favourite fantasy.” Merlin moaned softly and Arthur nearly echoed him as a hot wave of arousal overtook the shame and embarrassment.

“Fuck Merlin, practically every time I see you I have fantasies about laying you down and sucking you off while you say my name,” Arthur groaned, abandoning all hope of salvaging his pride and professionalism in a glorious haze of lust. “My fingers buried in your arse so deep, you coming down my throat and me swallowing your load.”

“Next time we’re in the same city, you should,” Merlin said, licking his lower lip invitingly. “I want to see what you look like all hard and ready for me.”

“Well seeing as we both have cameras, if you show me yours I’ll show you mine,” Arthur said, smirking as he tilted his laptop down to catch the bulge of his erection in his boxer-briefs, slowly opening the buttons down his shirtfront to reveal his chest.

“Leave the tie on,” Merlin said.

*

Hey, nobody said the consequences were _bad_.

**Author's Note:**

> I mentioned Zoom in the beginning notes as part of one of the considered titles, but the program in the fic isn't Zoom (I didn't use a program name in the fic itself on purpose). So yes I'm aware Zoom doesn't work that way! The unnamed fictional program they use has that dubiously-useful function though, because it's porn for funsies.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it either way!


End file.
